Two car bombs at midnight, aimed directly at the bus carrying Benazir Bhutto through the streets of Karachi, killed at least 126 people and left 248 injured, shattering the carnival spirit of her triumphant return to Pakistan from exile.

Ms Bhutto had stepped down briefly into the fortified body of the double-decked vehicle to use the lavatory when the bombs exploded, and escaped unhurt.

She was whisked away to Bilawal House, her family residence, and the procession was abandoned. As cars burnt in the steamy, dark streets, thousands of her supporters fled in panic. For the previous ten hours she had shunned the protection of bulletproof glass to stand on the roof of the converted lorry in front of a crowd of more than 500,000.

A close friend of Ms Bhutto, who was two cars behind her bus, said that a white Suzuki van, approaching the convoy from the left, rammed one of the police cars acting as a protective buffer and exploded. Within seconds, a second car on the same side exploded with a much bigger blast, leaving a huge crater.

Expert View

There are signs that, by targeting Benazir Bhutto, the extremists have brought her a huge surge in support

Bronwen Maddox

• More

• Post a comment

Related Links

• On-the-spot: Bhutto supporters blame Musharraf

• The Iron Lady?

• Compromises may fan flames of extremism

Multimedia

• Pictures: Bhutto returns

“I saw bodies blown into pieces,” she said. Ms Bhutto’s bus was badly damaged, its left side blackened, a door deformed and the driver’s seat almost completely destroyed. Pools of blood collected under its twisted chassis.

“Bodies were scattered all over and wounded were crying for help. No one went near the bodies out of fear that there could be another blast,” said Athar Hussain, a photographer injured in the explosion.

A relative of Ms Bhutto said that the former Prime Minister was “visibly shaken” when she arrived at her family compound in Karachi. Another friend said Ms Bhutto “came down and met everyone, and was very upset about those who had been killed”.

She later called for the head of the Intelligence Bureau, the civilian intelligence agency, to be dismissed.

Many of the dead and injured appeared to be policemen, part of the 20,000-strong force sent to guard Ms Bhutto’s ten-mile procession route. She had asked for extra protection, including the specially-designed and reinforced vehicle, but had refused to change her plans despite the obvious danger and threats from extremists. “It was an act of terrorism targeting Benazir Bhutto and aimed at sabotaging the democratic process,” said Aftab Sherpao, the Interior Minister.

“We suspect these were suicide bombings because any pre-planted or timed device would have been prevented by jammers attached to security vehicles,” he added.

Militants linked to al-Qaeda, angered by Ms Bhutto’s pledge to hunt down Osama bin Laden, had threatened to assassinate her only a few days ago. She had dismissed it, saying that it was forbidden under Islam to attack women or children.

President Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz, the Prime Minister, condemned the attack. Political analysts speculated that President Musharraf, the military leader who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and who has resisted standing down as head of the Army, might be tempted to call a state of emergency.

The White House, which has backed Ms Bhutto’s power-sharing deal, was outraged. “Extremists will not be allowed to stop Pakistanis from selecting their representatives through an open and democratic process,” said Gordon Johndroe, President Bush’s foreign affairs spokesman.

Schools and colleges in Karachi have been ordered to remain closed. Ms Bhutto’s plans to make her first big public speech early today at the mausoleum of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, were scrapped.

The blasts came after a day of huge emotion. Standing wet-eyed on the steps of the aircraft that had brought her back to Pakistan after eight years of exile, dressed in the vivid green of the national flag, Ms Bhutto had pressed her fingers to her eyes and then raised her hands to the sky, as the crowd roared: “You will be the next leader of our country.”

In the first three hours of her journey from the airport, the bus crawled just three hundred yards as people climbed electricity poles and shop awnings. Buses had brought many supporters from her native Sindh province, but also from the Punjab, the North West Frontier province and the tribal areas beyond government control.

They were almost entirely men — it was easy to pass minutes without seeing a woman — for all of Ms Bhutto’s efforts to boost women’s political expression.

The packed streets of Karachi on Ms Bhutto’s arrival were the endorsement that she had sought; the deserted streets at night, flickering with the lights of police cars and ambulances, are a measure of the terrorist threat that confronts Pakistan.

Woman with power and a past

— Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996. When she first gained power, aged only 35, she was the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of any Islamic country

— She studied at Oxford from 1973 to 1977, where she also became the first Asian woman President of the Oxford Union

— On returning to Pakistan after her studies she arrived in time to see her father deposed in a military coup. He was imprisoned and executed

— Over the following decade she was the focus for resistance against the military regime, spending more than five years in prison until General Zia-ul-Haq’s death allowed her party to gain democratic power

— Claims of corruption ended both her terms in office

— Since 2002 she has been engaged in on-off talks to share power with President Musharraf. With the help of their deal, General Musharraf won a new term earlier this month but the result remains unofficial

Source: Times archives

Times Recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found